Trail Between Dreams

I listen for the hum of quiet

spring and summer gatherings in a private field

of fragrant flowers full of family and close friends

with perennially pleasing flower arrangement hopes.

Maybe I was born 100 years too late.

I live in a small world that is almost too large.

I have two sights: I see the stream of traffic

out the living room window of my new city,

and I remember western redcedar bows holding the damp dew

of the morning with my rural, childhood, canyon home

full of beautiful art legacies and the kindling of woodstove moments

for family comfort. I hold dearly to the eternal tomes and talismans

of spring and summer smiles from hillside gardens.

Will an old kind of awareness find me?

I’ll follow myrtle spices in the air and get caught

by a fixed-weight, summer-hammock-woven-memories leader

of soft, hook scents from alder

campfire wood smoke fragrances that frame

my old and new scenes as I teach

my children—life is more than a trail between dreams.